THE THIRD PART: 24 CRUCIAL LINES IN THE BIBLE
The God-man Living
Message Four—The Five Treasure of Our Heritage for the God-man Living
Scripture Reading: John 6:57, 63; 8:32; 5:39-40; 2 Cor. 4:12; 1 John 5:11-16; Acts 20:20, 27; 26:18; 1 Cor. 3:6-7; Col. 3:16; Eph. 5:19
I. As believers in Christ, we need to eat Christ to become the reproduction of Christ practically and to live the life of a God-man; if we eat Christ, we will become Christ—Luke 22:19; John 6:57; 1 Cor. 10:17: (2001 ICSC, msg. 4)
A. John 6:57 reveals how the reality that is in Jesus, the God-man living of Jesus, can become the reality of the Body of Christ, the corporate God-man living of the new man as the duplication of the God-man living of Jesus; the purpose of God in sending the Lord Jesus to be a man was for Him to live a God-man life by the divine life—1 Cor. 17:4: (2007 ICSC, msg. 2)
1. John 6:57a says, “As the living Father has sent Me and I live because of the Father”; this is the reality that is in Jesus, the God-man living of Jesus. (2007 ICSC, msg. 2)
2. John 6:57b says, “So he who eats Me, he also shall live because of Me”; this is the reality of the Body of Christ, the corporate God-man living of the many members of the Body of Christ, who are learning Christ, living because of Christ, as the reality is in Jesus. (2007 ICSC, msg. 2)
3. We live because of Christ, taking Christ as the supplying factor of our living; to live because of Christ as our food, we must eat Him so that He can be the supplying and energizing factor to live in us and through us for the building up of His Body—v. 63; Jer. 15:16; Rom. 8:2; 12:1-2. (2007 ICSC, msg. 2)
B. We need to eat the word of the Bible; the word of God is not mainly for knowledge but for nourishment; according to the entire revelation in the Holy Bible, God’s words are good for us to eat, and we need to eat them—John 6:63; 1 Pet. 2:2-3; Heb. 5:12-14. (The Enjoyment of Christ for the Body in 1 Corinthians, ch. 4; 1998 ST, msg. 11; Holy Bible Recovery Version, Jer. 15:16, footnote 1)
C. All the divine facts are contained in the Word and conveyed to us through the Word; when the Spirit shines upon the facts in the Word, we have the heavenly television and know the truth—John 8:32. (2005 ICSC, msg. 5)
D. The five treasures in the Lord’s recovery: the Life-studies; the basic truths revealed in the Recovery Version; the Conclusion of the New Testament; the Life; the Hymns: (Crucial Words of Leading in the Lord’s Recovery, Book 3: The Future of the Lord’s Recovery and the Building Up of the Organic Service, msg. 9)
1. Our study of the word plus our experience of life issues in the truths preached in the Lord’s recovery today; the footnotes in the Recovery Version were written according to this principle; we first studied the text of the Bible, and then based on our spiritual experience of the past decades, we produced footnotes and the Life-studies. (The Proper Aggressiveness of the Lord’s Serving Ones, msg. 7)
2. The Recovery Version with the Life-study Messages can be considered as the crystallization of the understanding of the holy Word, which the seeking saints have interpreted throughout the past twenty centuries. (Prophesying for the Building Up of the Church, msg. 9)
II. The life-study messages do not replace the Bible and are also not for educational research, but they are the best way to bring people into the Bible; the Life-study of the Bible began with the Life-study of Romans back in 1974 and finished with the Life-study of Song of Songs in 1995; there are 867 life-study messages in the Old Testament, and 1,117 messages in the New Testament, 1,984 messages in total; the Life-Study of the Bible took Brother Lee the longest time to publish, its content is also the broadest and deepest, and it is the most complete publication work in the Lord’s recovery: (A Pattern of the Healthy Words, the Second Series–The Way to Study the Truth, lsn. 7)
A. The function of the life-study messages—2 Cor. 4:12; 1 John 5:11-16; Acts 20:20, 27; 26:18: (A Pattern of the Healthy Words, the Second Series–The Way to Study the Truth, lsn. 7)
1. To minister the life supply; the main purpose of the Life-study is to minister life; diamonds, jewels, and jade are here in the Life-studies. (A Pattern of the Healthy Words, the Second Series–The Way to Study the Truth, lsn. 7; The Divine Speaking, ch. 5)
2. To present the truth—Acts 20:20, 27; 26:18. (A Pattern of the Healthy Words, the Second Series–The Way to Study the Truth, lsn. 7)
3. To solve the common and hard problems in the Bible. (A Pattern of the Healthy Words, the Second Series–The Way to Study the Truth, lsn. 7)
4. To open up the books of the Bible. (A Pattern of the Healthy Words, the Second Series–The Way to Study the Truth, lsn. 7)
B. The features of the life-study messages: (A Pattern of the Healthy Words, the Second Series–The Way to Study the Truth, lsn. 7)
1. Pointing out the central theme of the Bible and all of its aspects; the life-studies have a center; they also contain explanations and definitions of various matters, so they are comprehensive as well; therefore, when we study the life-studies, we are always able to obtain the life nourishment from them, and we are also able to gain some knowledge of the truth. (A Pattern of the Healthy Words, the Second Series–The Way to Study the Truth, lsn. 7; Truth, Life, the Church, and the Gospel – The Four Great Pillars in the Lord’s Recovery, msg. 1)
2. Apprehending and experiencing all the aspects of Christ. (A Pattern of the Healthy Words, the Second Series–The Way to Study the Truth, lsn. 7)
3. Checking the types with our practical experience and applying them to our daily living. (A Pattern of the Healthy Words, the Second Series–The Way to Study the Truth, lsn. 7)
C. Entering into the truths of the Bible through the life-study messages; the goal of the life-study messages is to bring people into the truths of the Bible; dig into the Recovery Version with the footnotes and the life-study messages as you would dig into a mine for treasure: (A Pattern of the Healthy Words, the Second Series–The Way to Study the Truth, lsn. 7; Truth, Life, the Church, and the Gospel – The Four Great Pillars in the Lord’s Recovery, msg. 1)
1. Leading people to touch life; the life-study messages bring people into the truth to enjoy and experience its riches; the life-study messages bring us into the depths of the Bible to touch and enjoy the life within—cf. John 5:39-40. (A Pattern of the Healthy Words, the Second Series–The Way to Study the Truth, lsn. 7)
2. Encouraging people to progress in the truth. (A Pattern of the Healthy Words, the Second Series–The Way to Study the Truth, lsn. 7)
3. Inspiring people to speak the profound truth. (A Pattern of the Healthy Words, the Second Series–The Way to Study the Truth, lsn. 7)
4. Enriching the meetings; we need to use the Life-studies in order to enrich the home meetings, to strengthen the home meetings, to refresh, and to make them so alive, so attractive, even so attracting, and so upholding. (A Pattern of the Healthy Words, the Second Series–The Way to Study the Truth, lsn. 7; The Divine Speaking, ch. 5)
D. “I have the assurance to say that whoever has read through five hundred Life-study messages properly has been an excellent believer…Medicine, nourishment, and all kinds of vitamins are included in these messages” (Elders’ Training, Book 3: The Way to Carry Out the Vision, p. 106). (2005 ICSC, msg. 4)
E. I absolutely believe that if any local church promotes the Life-studies in this way, it will be revived; if all the saints in a locality practice for one year to read the Life-studies to receive the life supply and study the truth for small group meetings, message meetings, and shepherding and helping others by fellowshipping with them, the church in that locality will surely be revived. (The Faithful and Diligent Spreading of the Truth, msg. 1)
III. The basic truths revealed in the Recovery Version; the Recovery Version of the New Testament can be called the crystallization of the understanding of the divine revelation, which the saints everywhere have attained to in the past two thousand years—Gen. 1:26: (A Blessed Human Life, msg. 4)
A. The first item of the basic truths in the Bible is God’s creation—Gen. 1:26: (Crucial Words of Leading in the Lord’s Recovery, Book 3: The Future of the Lord’s Recovery and the Building Up of the Organic Service, msg. 9)
1. First, God created nonliving things; these are the heavens, the earth, light, the atmosphere, and all other myriads of things without life. (Crucial Words of Leading in the Lord’s Recovery, Book 3: The Future of the Lord’s Recovery and the Building Up of the Organic Service, msg. 9)
2. God created living things; there are three steps in this point: the creation of things with the lowest level of life, the creation of things with a higher level of life, and the creation of things with the highest level of life; the lowest level of life includes things without feelings or consciousness like plants, the next level of life includes animals such as fish and birds, and the highest level of non-human life includes beasts like monkeys and horses. (Crucial Words of Leading in the Lord’s Recovery, Book 3: The Future of the Lord’s Recovery and the Building Up of the Organic Service, msg. 9)
3. God created the life that resembles Him, and this refers to the creation of man; God created man in His image and according to His likeness—Gen. 1:26. (Crucial Words of Leading in the Lord’s Recovery, Book 3: The Future of the Lord’s Recovery and the Building Up of the Organic Service, msg. 9)
B. The second item of the basic truths is man’s fall, which is recorded in Genesis 3—vv. 1, 4-5: (Crucial Words of Leading in the Lord’s Recovery, Book 3: The Future of the Lord’s Recovery and the Building Up of the Organic Service, msg. 9)
1. Man transgressed and became a sinner, a transgressor before God; he was condemned by God’s law—Rom. 3:23. (Crucial Words of Leading in the Lord’s Recovery, Book 3: The Future of the Lord’s Recovery and the Building Up of the Organic Service, msg. 9)
2. In his transgression man’s inward nature became sinful; when man fell, he not only broke God’s law, which is outward, but also received Satan’s poison, which is inward; in this way Satan entered into human nature and became man’s sinful nature—7:17, 20. (Crucial Words of Leading in the Lord’s Recovery, Book 3: The Future of the Lord’s Recovery and the Building Up of the Organic Service, msg. 9)
C. The third item of the basic truths is God’s redemption; in the fall we sold ourselves; in God’s view, however, we were redeemable; in order for God to save us, He first had to redeem us; this is the purpose of redemption; in God’s redemption we must pass through seven steps for its completion—1 John 1:7, 9; 1 Cor. 6:11; 2 Cor. 5:19-21: (Crucial Words of Leading in the Lord’s Recovery, Book 3: The Future of the Lord’s Recovery and the Building Up of the Organic Service, msg. 9)
1. The first step is the redemption from sins (Eph. 1:7; Col. 1:14); the Lord redeemed us from our sins; strictly speaking, this is redemption, but it is only the first step of redemption; the Lord cleared up our sins and redeemed us from the condemnation of the law. (Crucial Words of Leading in the Lord’s Recovery, Book 3: The Future of the Lord’s Recovery and the Building Up of the Organic Service, msg. 9)
2. The second step is the forgiveness of sins (Eph. 1:7; Col. 1:14; Acts 2:38); Luke 24:47 says, “That repentance for forgiveness of sins would be proclaimed.” hence, one aspect of the gospel is that it is the gospel of the forgiveness of sins. (Crucial Words of Leading in the Lord’s Recovery, Book 3: The Future of the Lord’s Recovery and the Building Up of the Organic Service, msg. 9)
3. The third step is the cleansing from sins (1 John 1:7, 9); the Lord does not merely forgive us our sins; He also washes away every trace of our sins from us so that it is as if we never sinned at all. (Crucial Words of Leading in the Lord’s Recovery, Book 3: The Future of the Lord’s Recovery and the Building Up of the Organic Service, msg. 9)
4. The fourth step of redemption is sanctification (Heb. 10:29); sanctification refers to the fact that God has separated us unto holiness; we are different from everything else, and we no longer belong to this world; this sanctification is objective and positional. (Crucial Words of Leading in the Lord’s Recovery, Book 3: The Future of the Lord’s Recovery and the Building Up of the Organic Service, msg. 9)
5. The fifth step of redemption is justification (Rom. 3:24-25); after sanctifying us, God justifies us. (Crucial Words of Leading in the Lord’s Recovery, Book 3: The Future of the Lord’s Recovery and the Building Up of the Organic Service, msg. 9)
6. The sixth step is reconciliation (5:10; Eph. 2:16; Col. 1:20, 22); God causes us to be reconciled to Himself. (Crucial Words of Leading in the Lord’s Recovery, Book 3: The Future of the Lord’s Recovery and the Building Up of the Organic Service, msg. 9)
7. The seventh step is acceptance (2 Cor. 6:2; Luke 15:22-24); second Corinthians 6:2 says, “Behold, now is the well-acceptable time;” God is happy when He accepts us. (Crucial Words of Leading in the Lord’s Recovery, Book 3: The Future of the Lord’s Recovery and the Building Up of the Organic Service, msg. 9)
E. The fourth item of the basic truths is God’s dispensing; this is the theology of the Lord’s recovery; the theology outside of the Lord’s recovery does not have this item; most believers in Christianity speak only of God’s redemption, which is entirely objective and refers to God’s redeeming us through the blood; God’s dispensing, however, is very subjective; there are seven points in God’s dispensing—John 3:3; 1 Thes. 5:23; Rom. 12:2; Titus 3:5; 2 Cor. 3:18; Rom. 8:29-30: (Crucial Words of Leading in the Lord’s Recovery, Book 3: The Future of the Lord’s Recovery and the Building Up of the Organic Service, msg. 9)
1. The first point is regeneration (John 3:3); through regeneration God gives us His life after He has redeemed us; in other words, God plants Himself as the seed of life into us, causing us to receive His life. (Crucial Words of Leading in the Lord’s Recovery, Book 3: The Future of the Lord’s Recovery and the Building Up of the Organic Service, msg. 9)
2. The second point in God’s dispensing is sanctification (1 Thes. 5:23); this sanctification is not outward; it is inward; it is subjective, not objective; it is dispositional, not positional. (Crucial Words of Leading in the Lord’s Recovery, Book 3: The Future of the Lord’s Recovery and the Building Up of the Organic Service, msg. 9)
3. The third point in God’s dispensing is renewing (Rom. 12:2; Titus 3:5); when God sanctifies us with His divine life, His life renews us inwardly. (Crucial Words of Leading in the Lord’s Recovery, Book 3: The Future of the Lord’s Recovery and the Building Up of the Organic Service, msg. 9)
4. The fourth point in God’s dispensing is transformation (Rom. 12:2; 2 Cor. 3:18); transformation is not an outward change; transformation is metabolic; every day the Lord supplies us with a new element, and this new element metabolically discharges the old elements within us; this is transformation. (Crucial Words of Leading in the Lord’s Recovery, Book 3: The Future of the Lord’s Recovery and the Building Up of the Organic Service, msg. 9)
5. The fifth point in God’s dispensing is conformation; God wants us to be conformed to the image of His Son (Rom. 8:29); transformation is a matter of essence, and conformation is a matter of image; we have God’s life, and this life is growing inside of us, transforming us, and conforming us to God’s image; since it is the life of God, it produces the image of God; this is conformation. (Crucial Words of Leading in the Lord’s Recovery, Book 3: The Future of the Lord’s Recovery and the Building Up of the Organic Service, msg. 9)
6. The sixth point in God’s dispensing is glorification (v. 30); glorification does not mean that we glorify God but that God glorifies us; God is glorified when He lives out from within us; God is constantly dispensing Himself into us, and His element of life glorifies us. (Crucial Words of Leading in the Lord’s Recovery, Book 3: The Future of the Lord’s Recovery and the Building Up of the Organic Service, msg. 9)
7. Finally, the seventh point is the ultimate manifestation of God’s dispensing—the New Jerusalem (Rev. 21:2); God’s dispensing begins with our regeneration, and it continues to its ultimate manifestation; in eternity we will become the New Jerusalem for God’s expression and His magnification. (Crucial Words of Leading in the Lord’s Recovery, Book 3: The Future of the Lord’s Recovery and the Building Up of the Organic Service, msg. 9)
IV. The Conclusion of the New Testament; after completing the life-study trainings of the entire New Testament in the winter of 1984, Brother Witness Lee, the Lord’s servant, began, from the summer of 1985 to the summer of 1986, to conduct three trainings to have a full expounding of crucial items concerning God, Christ, the Spirit, the believers, the church, the kingdom, and the New Jerusalem in God’s New Testament economy, and these messages are compiled into the first two hundred sixty-four messages of The Conclusion of the New Testament: (The Conclusion of the New Testament, vol. 17, Experiencing and Enjoying Christ in the Gospels and in Acts, Introduction)
A. God: The revelations concerning what God is can be seen everywhere in every book of the Bible; these revelations of the person of God, which are scattered in different places like pieces of a jigsaw puzzle, need to be put together in order to form a complete picture; in these following messages we shall see the revelations concerning God in His person, nature, attributes, good pleasure, manifestation, and work unveiled in the Bible. (The Conclusion of the New Testament, Introduction in Chinese)
B. Christ: All that God is, is in Christ; God and Christ are one; if we would know God and enjoy Him, we need to consider all the aspects of who Christ is and what Christ is, His person in the Godhead, attributes, virtues, and work. (The Conclusion of the New Testament, Introduction in Chinese)
C. The Spirit: In the specific messages concerning the Spirit, beginning with various aspects of the person of the Spirit, we shall orderly study the person, symbols, attributes, coming, and work of the Spirit. (The Conclusion of the New Testament, Introduction in Chinese)
D. The believers: Begining with the sixfold status of the believers before they were saved, we shall successively present the believers’ status, designations, symbols, life, nature, past, present, and future; through this we will realize the ordination and intention of God for man and have the eternal hope for these. (The Conclusion of the New Testament, Introduction in Chinese)
E. The church: The church as the hidden mystery in God’s eternal economy is the revelation of the mystery of Christ; these messages will explain the formation of the church, the establishment of the churches, the two aspects of the church, the offices in the church, the relationship between the four special gifts and the church, the fellowship among the churches, the status of the church, the failures in the churches, the degradation of the church, the recovery of the church, the stages of the church, and the consummation of the church. (The Conclusion of the New Testament, Introduction in Chinese)
F. The kingdom: According to the book of Daniel, Christ as the heavenly stone will eventually become a great mountain and fill the whole earth; this is the kingdom as the increase of Christ; in these messages we shall orderly present various aspects of the kingdom: its reality, its nature, its expression, its relation to God’s glory, and its unshakableness. (The Conclusion of the New Testament, Introduction in Chinese)
G. The New Jerusalem: The New Jerusalem, the most mysterious and puzzling matter in the Bible, is first mentioned in Galatians 4:26; these messages are to unlock the greatest and ultimate sign in the Scriptures and to unveil the significance of this mystery, the New Jerusalem. (The Conclusion of the New Testament, Introduction in Chinese)
H. In the winter of 1986 Brother Witness Lee held one more training, conducting a study of the whole New Testament from the point of view of the experience, enjoyment, and expression of Christ; this abundant content is compiled as 265th to 436th messages of The Conclusion of the New Testament. (The Conclusion of the New Testament, vol. 9, Introduction in Chinese)
V. Life is another item of the treasures in the Lord’s recovery; life is related to experience; it is not a doctrine; hence, we must study our experiences to see how we were regenerated, how we are being transformed, how we will mature, and so forth; we cannot understand this point merely by studying the Bible; we must match what we read in the Bible with our experience—1 Cor. 3:6-7; Col. 2:19: (Crucial Words of Leading in the Lord’s Recovery, Book 3: The Future of the Lord’s Recovery and the Building Up of the Organic Service, msg. 9)
A. Several books about life:(Crucial Words of Leading in the Lord’s Recovery, Book 3: The Future of the Lord’s Recovery and the Building Up of the Organic Service, msg. 9)
1. The Knowledge of Life.(Crucial Words of Leading in the Lord’s Recovery, Book 3: The Future of the Lord’s Recovery and the Building Up of the Organic Service, msg. 9)
2. The Experience of Life.(Crucial Words of Leading in the Lord’s Recovery, Book 3: The Future of the Lord’s Recovery and the Building Up of the Organic Service, msg. 9)
3. Basic Principles of the Experience of Life.(Crucial Words of Leading in the Lord’s Recovery, Book 3: The Future of the Lord’s Recovery and the Building Up of the Organic Service, msg. 9)
4. Practical Lessons on the Experience of Life.(Crucial Words of Leading in the Lord’s Recovery, Book 3: The Future of the Lord’s Recovery and the Building Up of the Organic Service, msg. 9)
5. Life Messages.(Crucial Words of Leading in the Lord’s Recovery, Book 3: The Future of the Lord’s Recovery and the Building Up of the Organic Service, msg. 9)
6. The Experience and Growth in Life.(Crucial Words of Leading in the Lord’s Recovery, Book 3: The Future of the Lord’s Recovery and the Building Up of the Organic Service, msg. 9)
7. The God-Man Living.(Crucial Words of Leading in the Lord’s Recovery, Book 3: The Future of the Lord’s Recovery and the Building Up of the Organic Service, msg. 9)
B. “There is a very heavy burden within me, a very deep feeling, that what every church today needs most is the things of life. All our work and activity must come out of life…Unless it comes out of life, our work and service will neither last nor bear much weight. If we want our work to bear abundant and lasting fruit, we must have a foundation in life. We ourselves must touch the Lord in life…Only thus can we fit into the work which God desires to do in this age…We should have only one desire—to know and experience the life of the Lord more, and to be able to share with others what we have known and experienced so that they too may obtain something…Our work should just be the releasing of the life of the Lord, the imparting and supplying of the Lord’s life to others. May the Lord have mercy upon us and open our eyes to see that the central work of God in this age is that man may gain His life and grow and mature in His life. Only the work which comes out of His life can reach His eternal standard and be accepted by Him” (The Knowledge of Life, pp. 57-58). (2012 ITERO-S, msg. 2)
VI. The Lord’s recovery has a hymnal; we put out our hymnal, we had a focus and an emphasis, and we did not cut ourselves off from any truth; today there is no other collection of hymns like ours that includes all the major truths: (Crucial Words of Leading in the Lord’s Recovery, Book 3: The Future of the Lord’s Recovery and the Building Up of the Organic Service, msg. 9; The Four Crucial Elements of the Bible – Christ, the Spirit, Life, and the Church, msg. 6)
A. Hymns being expressions of a thorough understanding of the truth; I compiled our present hymnal in 1966; you cannot find a hymnal in Christianity that is like our hymnal, which is so full of truths in its contents: (The Four Crucial Elements of the Bible – Christ, the Spirit, Life, and the Church, msg. 9)
1. The study of this hymnal alone is the study of the highest theology in the Lord’s recovery; to study the table of contents of our hymnal until we thoroughly understand it and find the basis of the biblical truth of each hymn would require at least four years. (The Four Crucial Elements of the Bible – Christ, the Spirit, Life, and the Church, msg. 9)
2. Our spiritual books and life-studies are the expressions of the truths in written words, and hymns are the conversion of the words into poems and lyrics; to compose hymns is to reach the peak, to arrive at the ultimate point, of the study of the truth. (The Four Crucial Elements of the Bible – Christ, the Spirit, Life, and the Church, msg. 9)
3. It is not easy to select a proper hymn; the English hymnal that we compiled has 1,080 hymns of which more than two hundred were written by us; the remaining eight hundred or so hymns were collected from among more than ten thousand hymns; we can say that the best of the hymns written throughout the centuries. (The Four Crucial Elements of the Bible – Christ, the Spirit, Life, and the Church, msg. 6)
B. The development of hymns in the lord’s recovery: (Words of Training for the New Way, Vol. 2, msg. 22)
1. The first stage began over sixty years ago; we read of the hymnals published by the Brethren during their golden age; Brother Nee borrowed the table of contents of their hymnals as the basic structure for ours and added two more topics related to the spiritual warfare and the subjective experience of the cross; these were compiled into a hymnal; at that time, our hymnal only had one hundred eighty-three hymns. (Words of Training for the New Way, Vol. 2, msg. 22)
2. In 1949, the young people’s work began in Taiwan; we felt that the one hundred eighty-three hymns were not adequate, so we published a second volume of our hymnal; by 1961, we began to see God’s economy; I wrote eighty-five hymns which became the so-called “Supplement of 85 Hymns;” they were all related to God’s economy. (Words of Training for the New Way, Vol. 2, msg. 22)
3. In 1967, after I finished the compilation of the English hymnal in America, I returned to Taiwan and combined the two volumes of the Chinese hymnal, the “Supplement of 85 Hymns,” and the gospel songs into a single volume; in addition, I added two hundred more hymns; the result is the Chinese hymnal that we are using today. (Words of Training for the New Way, Vol. 2, msg. 22)
C. Every hymn that is up to the standard must meet three basic requirements; if a hymn fails to meet any of these requirements, it is not a good hymn: (Messages for Building Up New Believers, Vol. 1, msg. 15)
1. First, the words of a hymn must be based on the truth; if it falls short in doctrinal integrity, it will easily lead Christians into error. (Messages for Building Up New Believers, Vol. 1, msg. 15)
2. Second, a hymn needs to be poetic in its form and structure; every psalm is fine and tender in form and expression and utters God’s mind in the way of poetry. (Messages for Building Up New Believers, Vol. 1, msg. 15)
3. Third, a hymn needs to provide spiritual impact; it must touch spiritual reality. (Messages for Building Up New Believers, Vol. 1, msg. 15)
D. The contents of the hymns have a total of 29 categories, including: Blessing of the Trinity, Worship of the Father, Praise of the Lord, Fullness of the Spirit, Assurance and Joy of Salvation, Consecration, Union with Christ, Experience of Christ, Experience of God, Gloying in the Cross, the Way of the Cross, the Resurrection Life, Encouragement, Comfort in Trials, Divine Healing, Prayer, the Church, Meetings, Spiritual Warfare, Serving, Preaching of the Gospel, Baptism, the Lord’s Day, the Kingdom, Hope of Glory, Ultimate Manifestation, and Gospel. (cf. The Contents of Hymns)
E. In conclusion, if we are going to have meetings according to the scriptural way, we must know the hymns; we need to learn to speak the hymns in our meetings—Col. 3:16; Eph. 5:19: (Speaking Christ for the Building Up of the Body of Christ, msg. 7)
1. We have to know the crucial points of the contents of the hymns, the standard of the hymns, the sensation of the hymns, the wording of the hymns, and the tune of the hymns. (Speaking Christ for the Building Up of the Body of Christ, msg. 7)
2. We need to learn to speak the hymns in our meetings; this practice with Christ as the center is refreshing, nourishing, edifying, and building up; if all the saints in the Lord’s recovery practiced speaking the hymns in the meetings, the meetings would be living, refreshing, and rich. (Speaking Christ for the Building Up of the Body of Christ, msg. 7)